News

Dance has been a part of film since the early days of the visual medium. As the dance trends came and went, so did the movies portraying them on the silver screen.

North Carolinians will cast their ballots on Super Tuesday for the first time next week. Although we join 13 other states in voting that day, some pundits argue North Carolina is the key state, even “ground zero”  in this presidential election cycle.

When the movie "Outbreak" came out in 1995, Bahby Banks was in high school, good at math and ready to join the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an epidemiologist tracking disease. But the more she learned about the broader contextual issues of public health, the more she wondered about what happens after the numbers are collected.

The insurance tycoon accused of trying to bribe the state insurance commissioner with $2 million in campaign donations went on trial this week. 

And a new poll came out showing Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Michael Bloomberg, and Joe Biden essentially tied in North Carolina as we barrel toward Super Tuesday. 

Rob Schofield of the progressive NC Policy Watch and Mitch Kokai of the John Locke Foundation review all that news and mull whether the North Carolina House Speaker would be a good chancellor for East Carolina University. 
 

Democratic candidates were at each other’s throats this week in the latest presidential debate in Las Vegas as the stakes of the race continue to climb. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made his first debate appearance, and his fellow candidates targeted him on stage with several different attacks. 

What keeps youth voters from the polls? The longstanding assumption is that the under-30 electorate just does not care about that part of the political process. But a new book argues against that premise. 

With a soulful blend of twang and spacey-rock tunes, the indie-country duo Blue Cactus is known for its country music sound. Steph Stewart and Mario Arnez released their EP “Finger on the Button” earlier this week with a titular track that they call their President’s Day anthem. 

For years, the Piedmont Triad’s cities have been chopped up and divvied between Republican-dominated congressional districts, diluting their heavy concentration of Democrats. But last year, after courtroom fights over partisan gerrymandering concluded, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point were united in a new 6th district that’s likely to go blue.

Childbearing in the United States is more deadly than in any other developed nation. Despite medical advances over the last few decades, the number of reported pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. continues to steadily increase.

While visiting Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, Alabama, photographer Jessica Ingram was struck by how familiar media images from the civil rights era, such as attack dogs and high-pressure water hoses turned on protestors, were memorialized in sculpture. She wondered what was left out of the dominant narrative of this time.

Camera systems sold by the Atlanta-based company Flock Safety promise homeowners greater security. Flock cameras capture license plate numbers as vehicles come in and out of neighborhoods.

A multi-year, daily writing practice taught Alexis Pauline Gumbs a lot about what it means to listen. Deeply influenced by the black feminist author and scholar Sylvia Wynter, Gumbs’ daily exercise changed the way she thinks about the stories that define humanity and how she percieves her own ancestry.

Homelessness on campus does not always look the same as homelessness on the streets. It often means students without a place to stay end up couch surfing until they find a more permanent solution.

Not too long ago, a Democratic primary in North Carolina's 2nd Congressional District was little more than an exercise in futility: picking a candidate to run a losing campaign against an entrenched Republican incumbent.

Jim Blaine is an unapologetic and self-identified political hack. He is also one of the most respected political operatives in North Carolina. He was chief of staff to the Republican state senate leader before starting his own consulting company in 2018. 

On this episode of the WUNCPolitics Podcast, Blaine discusses his personal political evolution, why Bernie Sanders makes him trepidatious, and why Republicans should be more worried about the dark horse in North Carolina's Democratic senate primary.